Tuesday 13 December 2022 – ACBC Vic was pleased to host the 2022 End-of-Year China Market Wrap-up with Victorian Commissioner to China Brett Stevens.
Moderated by ACBC Victoria & Tasmania CEO Virginia Birrell, Brett updated attendees on topics of COVID restrictions, and e-Commerce, and addressed key sectors including education, agriculture and more.
With ministerial dialogues in late 2022 between Australia and China, Brett is optimistic about the future of Victoria-China trade relations. Victoria retains the largest presence in China of any Australian state with trade & investment offices in Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing, Chengdu and Hong Kong and remains committed to growing and maintaining the economic relationship with China.
There has been a policy shift regarding China’s COVID strategy with relaxation of PCR test requirements, allowing people to now conduct at-home isolation, and international arrive quarantines are down to 3 days home isolation.
Brett advises to keep an eye on both national trends as well as the diverse local situations as COVID policies implemented may have variations depending on the local conditions.
From the business perspective, the pandemic, particularly the frequency of lockdowns, has given way to more consumers in China purchasing daily necessities online, expanding into groceries and other retail being purchased online rather than in-person.
Growth in the cross-border e-commerce market was worth AUD$40BN in 2021 and has expanded with the establishment of “cross border e-commerce offline product collection” stores, meaning customers can shop at a physical store where the customs clearance process occurs at the checkout. Chemist Warehouse has emerged as a prime case study for this.
These factors all play into the ongoing opportunities for Victorian exported products being sold onto e-commerce channels in China.
Chinese consumers continue to recognise the quality that comes with Victorian products while being discerning and educated in their choices.
Brett summarised that more and more Chinese students are heading to Melbourne to continue or commence their studies, and the Study Hub has also been hosting on and offline pre-departure sessions.
Currently out of the 37 thousand total Chinese students enrolled in Victorian tertiary institutions, two-thirds have returned to study on-site with a remainder of 12 thousand still off-shore.
International students are a vital part of both the Victorian community and economy, and the Victorian Government is committed to supporting them in returning to complete their studies on-shore.
Brett addressed several questions from guests on a range of topics.
He indicated that Victoria will remain a primary dairy and beef supplier for China, and that there is a specific push from the Chinese government to improve efficiencies in the dairy market.
WTO tariff restrictions remain for another 3 years on wine imports, but he is seeing an overall increase of bottled wine imports into China due to competitive prices.
There are more and more local Chinese brands across all sectors, but Victorian brands still hold significant weight in-market and new category opportunities are opening up in health and in the net-zero economy.